Buster, Technology & Foosball – UPDATED

And because my kids do not read my blog – who is more boring than mother? – I sent the link to each of them. I got into a conversation with someone, later, about how the technology shows us that nothing is static, that soon watches and cameras may be little more than charming relics, like horse buggies.

It’s a good reminder, I think, not to get attached to “things.”

This morning, having watched the video, Buster texted (new verb) me from school:

That was interesting technology. It’s a little scary…the fact that news could be streaming means that you could really lose sight of what’s real.

Well, of course, I had to ask myself why I hadn’t considered that. I sent back:

You know, that’s very true, and very much wisdom from God. All of this is ‘moving on air,’ and who rules the air, is “the prince of the air?” The same being who is the Father of Lies. As with the internet which seduced us with information and confused us by laying “the whole world” at our feet, this will seduce us with insta-everything then befuddle us to where we don’t know what is real anymore. Diabolical disorientation disguised as a fun new toy!

Buster shot back:

Ummm…I wasn’t calling it the devil. I just meant it could very easily turn into a means for the government, or even media and advertisers, to track every action you make. After all, it has a camera and will have wifi. They could know everything you read, who you see; they’d know your politics and everything. Nothing secret would be hidden. Btw, you sound like that old woman who sits on the porch in a rocking chair with a shawl, sneering at the children as they pass by your house, and muttering soft condemnations of their new 12-speeds, proclaiming all new toys of theirs to be ‘the devil’…like the mother in Waterboy.

That response cracked me up. I laughed out loud and then, because of my cold, coughed for a few minutes. Well, I am the old lady in the chair, with the shawl, sneering at too much.

But when I was done laughing (and coughing) I noted the line “nothing secret would be hidden…”. Reminding me very much of Luke 8:17, it seemed to me the mirror-image that is part and parcel of the anti.

For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.

I wrote back:

You are saying more than you realize, and you’re very smart, but we’re both right. Tracking us would be absurdly easy, and a bit diabolical, too.

It’s just something to be aware of and keep in the back of one’s mind. The more we give ourselves over to technology, the more we allow instrumentation to come between us and our own guts, the more our instincts will dull, and the more easily we will be follow, rather than break out and lead. The more easily we will be subdued.

What puts the fear of God in me, is that I can see, how the biblical description of Judgment Day as revealing to all eyes the record of my life, is not some medieval fear and impossibility, but possible even in this world.

Well…be not afraid. If that day comes, everyone else will be looking at the records of their own lives being exposed. It may well have the effect of bringing us – finally – together, as we realize that we are all faulty, flawed, capable of great good and great evil, creatures of lightness and dark. It will emphasize that “none are perfect save Christ.” Remember what Michel Montaigne said:

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.